Sermon Tone Analysis

Opening:

Good-morning Connection Church.

I am so glad you have come out to worship Christ with us.

This morning is a special morning.

You may not be aware of this, but it is Christmas day today!

So Merry Christmas!

This is the day of the year we set aside to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

And it is a blessing because this year, it lands on the weekly day we set aside to worship and celebrate Christ.

It is the Lord’s Day.

I was talking with a friend this week and we were discussing what we do every Lord’s Day.

And we boiled it down to five things we celebrate every single Sunday.

We celebrate the birth of Christ, the perfect life of Christ on our behalf, the death of Christ in our place, the resurrection of Christ on the third day, and the coming return of Christ.

We celebrate these five things every single Sunday!

And this year, we have the honor and the joy of specifically celebrating the birth of Christ this Christmas Lord’s Day.

I am so thankful for that.

Introduction of the Text:

In the lead up to this wonderful celebration, we have been celebrating Advent by studying, verse by verse Luke 1.

And now we are up to the account of Christ’s birth.

We have been blessed to see some of the build up that lead to the birth of Christ.

And now, this morning, Advent is over, and Christmas has come!

That time of anticipation has now come to a close and we are at last celebrating with great joy, the fact that Jesus has come.

So with this in mind, I would ask you to stand with me for the reading of God’s Word.

Reading of the Text:

Luke 2:1-21 2 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered.

2 This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 And all went to be registered, each to his own town.

4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, 5 to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.

6 And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth.

7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

8 And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

9 And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with great fear.

10 And the angel said to them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.

11 For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

12 And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger.”

13 And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

14  “Glory to God in the highest,

and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

15 When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us.” 16 And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger.

17 And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child.

18 And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them.

19 But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.

20 And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

21 And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

Behold, the Word of God.

Let’s Pray.

Prayer:

Dear Heavenly Father, we ask that you would speak to your people this morning through your Word.

We need to hear from you this morning.

We bless you for sending your Son to save us.

We thank you that He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, and that He has atoned for our sins.

We bless your name this holy Christmas morn.

Speak to us this morning through your Word.

We ask this in the name of Jesus, our Lord, Amen.

Opening Illustration: (The True Myth)

C.S. Lewis described himself as “the most reluctant convert.”

He, as a young man was a avid atheist.

He was this way, because of the death of his mother.

He as a child prayed and prayed for God to heal her, yet she still died.

This drove him into a rabid form of atheism.

God must not exist.

Then as he aged and got older, he began to see that there simply must be a God.

It was foolish to argue against reality itself.

There simply must be a God.

But his anger continued, and he directed that anger at the God of the Bible.

Yes, there must be a God, but one thing is certain, it is not the God of the Bible.

Then as he continued on in life, he came to realize that if there is a God, it must be the God of the Bible.

There is no other reasonable option.

However, his anger shifted again.

Nothing could possibly be more obvious than the fact that there is a God and that God is the God of the Bible.

He is the Father who created everything and sustains everything.

However, this nonsense about Jesus simply must not be true.

The idea that God would take on flesh to redeem mankind was ridiculous.

Jesus could not be Lord.

He must have been a liar or a lunatic.

Lewis describes his journey of faith as going from Atheist to theist, then from theist to some hybrid form of Judaism.

But he still directed anger and denial at the idea of Christ.

That is until one day, when Lewis and his dear friend J.R.R. Tolkien were taking a walk down a dirt road with trees on both sides.

For context, Lewis was a professor of Medieval History and Mythology.

Lewis loved the myths of history.

He was borderline obsessed with them.

As Lewis and Tolkien were walking, Tolkien asked Lewis a question that floored Lewis.

Tolkien looked over at his friend he called Jack and just asked him, “Jack, why is it you love myths of the hero coming and dying for others and then coming back from the dead, but you hate the one true myth where that actually happened?”

Lewis had no answer.

He writes in his autobiography that Tolkien asked this question in a matter-of-fact way and then kept right on walking.

But at this question Lewis stopped dead in his tracks and was instantly swept away by the beauty of creation.

He watched as the leaves were kicked up by the wind and his life would never be the same.

Tolkien’s description of the gospel; the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Christ, as the “One true myth” was the catalyst that lead to the full conversion of Lewis.

Lewis was instantly forced to see that God was a master storyteller who organised all of human history to revolve around the coming of His Son.

All of history is centered on the arrival of Christ.

Every single event in all of time was either leading up to the coming of Christ, or was pointing back at the Christ who came.

All the great stories and myths are only lesser stories pointing to the divine narrative God is telling.

And here is the beauty, God’s canvas for this story is reality.

God is telling the greatest mythology ever and it is completely true.

And all reality bows down to the master story teller who weaves the tale together, not missing a single pen stroke.

I love this description of Christianity being the only true myth.

It captures the beauty of this story God is telling.

And few narratives capture this as clearly as the birth of Christ.

Here, in this account, God pulls back the curtain and shows us the beauty of the intricacies of the story He is telling.

It is here in this passage that we see the master story teller tie his tail together.

We know God is in control of all things.

We know that nothing happens outside of His decree, but, we rarely see that with our mortal eyes.